Bishop Barron's Sunday sermon: The great army of the martyrs
Bishop Robert Barron
Bishop Barron's Sunday sermon: The great army of the martyrs
Friends, during this Easter season we're reading from the book of Revelation, that marvelous, final book of the Bible. In today's reading, John sees mystically, across space and time, across the Christian centuries, all those people from all over the world who would give their lives for Christ. This army of martyrs compels a choice: Which army do we fight with? The army of the world, or the army of the Lamb, standing as though slain?
May 8,2022
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Gospel: Jn 10:27-30
Jesus said:
“My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
No one can take them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,
and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.
The Father and I are one.”
*United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, our Gospel reading today is extremely short, but it is packed with theological and spiritual significance. We hear first of a voice: “My sheep hear my voice.” How wonderful and strange that Christianity is not a set of ideas. It’s not a philosophy or an ideology. It’s a relationship with someone who has a voice. The first disciples were privileged to hear the voice of the historical Jesus, its very particular tonality and texture.
But we hear his voice too, in our own way, when we hear the Scriptures proclaimed at Mass. Mind you, we don’t just read the Bible; we hear the Bible. We hear the voice of Jesus too when the bishops and the popes speak. We can also hear the voice of Jesus in our conscience, which Newman called “the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul.”
We can hear the voice of Jesus in good spiritual friends as well, in those people who comfort us and challenge us and keep calling us to higher ideals and encouraging us when we fall. We listen to Jesus because he is leading us to a renewed and transformed life on high with God.
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